Run This Town: Rihanna Takes Over Cuba

Rihanna recently visited Cuba, sending locals into a frenzy the moment she set foot on the island.

Like Questlove, Rihanna recently visited Cuba, sending locals into a frenzy the moment she set foot on the island. While it isn't entirely clear why she was in town, the bad gals's faithful "Navy" apparently lives there too. The Bajan singer captured everyone's attention, wearing full makeup as she filmed for a new project. Another ad campaign, maybe?

After slaying the camera, Rih Rih nourished herself with a little Cuban cuisine especially crafted at La Frontana restaurant in Havana. See more of Rihanna kicking it in Cuba below.

Ozuna's back to back albums and monster collaborations have paid off in a major way. The 26-year-old is up for 23 nominations for the 2019 Billboard Latin Music Awards, setting a new record for the ceremony.

Announced Tuesday (Feb. 12), the singer-songwriter leads the diverse list of nominations including Hot Latin Songs Artist of the year, Male, Songwriter of the Year and Artist of the Year. His dominating work ethic also has him listed several times in the same category like Hot Latin Song (Casper Mágico, Nio García, Darell, Nicky Jam, Ozuna & Bad Bunny's, “Te Boté” and DJ Snake featuring Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B, “Taki Taki”) and Top Latin Album of the Year for his back to back projects Aura and Odisea.

Other leading contenders include J Balvin and Nicky Jam, with 13 each, Bad Bunny with 12, Daddy Yankee with eight and Cardi B with four. Other history-making moments include the increase of female nominees and the presence of women like Karol G and Natti Natasha in the Best New Artist category. Karol is also competing against Latin Trap sensation and boyfriend Anuel AA in the same category.

Infamous Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera was found guilty of all criminal counts against him, CNN reports. Now, he may face life in prison. The decision spanned the course of six days.

The 61-year-old is guilty of charges like international distribution of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, continuing criminal enterprise, and conspiracy to launder profits made off of narcotics. What made the deliberation extraneous was the amount of evidence presented during the trial. Reportedly, there were 200 hours of testimony since mid-November.

Last December, reports revealed that El Chapo approached the sister of a Colombian drug lord to purchase methamphetamine for his Sinaloa drug empire. Witness Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa admitted during trial that he was present during the transaction.

Villa revealed El Chapo went behind his back and made business deals with his siblings regarding the meth merchandise. According to The Wall Street Journal, the jurors were informed about how Guzman smuggled drugs into the U.S. and Mexico, which included various modes of transportation like tunnels, cars, planes, trucks, and trains.

Additionally, a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant testified and revealed that he took hold of a submarine filled with 13,000 pounds of cocaine off the coast of Guatemala. There was also other anecdotal evidence from those close to Guzman.

“One of Mr. Guzmán’s former mistresses testified about sleeping next to him in 2014 when they heard law enforcement agents outside,” writes Nicole Hong and Katie Honan. “They lifted the bathtub, which was a trap door, and fled through the underground sewage system for over an hour — all while Mr. Guzmán was completely naked.”

El Chapo is expected to be transferred to a high-security prison in Florence, Colo. The correctional facility is where some of the world’s most dangerous criminals are held, including 1993 World Trade Center terrorist Ramzi Yousef. When sentenced, El Chapo might face life in prison.

At a crowded hookah lounge in Downtown Orlando, where my girlfriends briefly whisk me away from post-breakup anguish, an opening G note played on a piano pulsates through the speakers. Immediately, I blow mango-mint smoke into the hazy room and pass the hose off, ready to replace pain with perreo.

Paso mucha' noches pensándote/Yo no sé ni cómo, ni cuándo fue

The keys lift me up from the seat I made for myself on a large window sill at the back of the bar.

Pero sólo sé que yo recordé/cómo te lo hacía yo aquella vez.

I shout each word passionately to my homegirls who yell them back, our acrylic nails pointing at each other like handguns as we ignite the dancefloor with each heated blast.

I’ve experienced this same moment numerous times in the last year: in Cuba, where I got my groove back grinding to the breakup hit at a Havana nightclub; at a Bad Bunny concert in New York, when my friend recorded and sent a clip of me shaking my a** to the Latin trap king himself while he performed it onstage; in Puerto Rico, during an actual “perreo sucio en La Placita;” and in my bedroom, where I spent the most time dancing through grief and healing through music.

In the year since my ex-boyfriend of eight years and I parted ways, music, particularly the rhythms and rhymes of Latin trap and reggaeton jams, have supported me. Songs like the energetic Nio Garcia and Casper Magico's "Te Bote" remix, featuring Bad Bunny, Ozuna and Nicky Jam, offered me an escape when the agony felt overwhelming. But El Conejo Malo’s emo refrains and Karol G’s self-assured hooks also helped me confront my oscillating emotions when I was ready, comforted me when I needed to cry, thumped my chest when I was angry, returned my confidence when I felt worthless and, ultimately, helped heal my shattered heart.

The resurgence of urbano music to the mainstream, by way of 2017 bangers like Natti Natasha and Ozuna's "Criminal," Karol G and Bad Bunny's "Ahora Me Llama" and, of course, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito," has coincided with my own returning.

This was the year my tumultuous relationship reached its end. The healthy and happy bond my ex and I created started chipping away two years earlier, but love, and perhaps habit, kept us fighting an unwinnable, destructive battle. We were both to blame. One’s infidelity, the other’s selfishness, one’s depression, the other’s lack of support, our mutual loss of respect. We kissed and said goodbye July 4, my very own Independence Day.

It was cordial, with us laughing in a rented car he drove from our apartment in Washington, D.C., to my new home on my best friend’s couch in Queens, but rage and despair still pulsated in both of our bodies. “Why couldn’t you love me enough to change,” he roared through text messages or late-night phones calls. “Why couldn’t you love me enough to stay,” I’d fire back. Away from each other, where we were no longer able to physically comfort one another through the pain we were guilty of causing, anger brewed, boiled and erupted.

Irate one summer morning, I put my headphones on and started jogging at a neighborhood park.

The truth: I didn’t have other lovers, and I preferred the heartbreak to turn me into a better partner, not a worse one, but El Conejo Malo’s 2017 salty breakup jam “Soy Peor” allowed me to experience, vicariously, all the irrational, not-so-healthy post-separation episodes that outrage leads to without actually doing them and regretting it later.

Even more, songs like Chris Jeday’s lovers-turned-foes beef track “Ahora Dice,” featuring J. Balvin, Ozuna and Arcángel, and Bunny’s f**k love anthem “Amorfoda” legitimized my feelings. I was angry, at myself, at him, and at all the promises we made to each other and plans we had for the future. I was regretful, for the ways I didn’t show up for him that I should have, for accepting behaviors and situations that I wasn’t OK with, for subscribing to bulls**t societal standards of romantic relationships. I was done, over trying to make something work that wasn’t serving either of us, over romantic love and over ruminating on all of it.

Truthfully, I wasn’t well at all — and I needed, for my own physical safety and mental stability, to feel whole again, to feel like me again, to feel loved again. So I left my job and industry opportunities to head back home to Orlando, Fla., where I found comfort, understanding, and warmth in family and lifelong friends. Surrounding myself with the unconditional love of a nephew’s laugh, a niece's begs to play, a mother’s midnight head massages and a father’s weekly pep talks, it was hard to be angry. For a while, that ire transformed into longing, a yearning for the good ol’ times, before disappointment turned to rage and led to betrayal.

Once traveling on this slippery road, it’s difficult to steer back to the path. Myers’ not-quite-over-you banger “Triste” featuring Bad Bunny has me in my head, unable to focus on the present because I realize I’m not yet over the past. I create a sad girl urbano playlist, with Ozuna’s “Farsante” forcing me to reconsider if the freedom that comes from singlehood really is as appealing as Bunny told me it was, and Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio’s own “Dime Si Te Acuerdas” reminding me of “to’ lo que hacíamos hasta que saliera el sol.”

My mood is heavy again, and my girlfriends take notice. They see me prioritizing my healing – journaling and meditating to identify where I, too, contributed to the demise of this relationship, trying to understand why, holding myself accountable, forgiving us both and trying to become a stronger and better me at the end — but they stress that I also need to make space for joy during this emotional journey.

Tonight, smutty trapero Anuel AA is encouraging me to bust out of my timid confines and let the champagne and club beats help me forget the one who broke my heart, even if just for a few hours. Next week, when I’m in Miami for a five-day getaway with two other homegirls who are fresh out of relationships, it’s Ozuna’s “Se Preparó” urging us to dry our tears and doll ourselves up for a night on the dancefloor.

These frequent reggaeton parties aren’t mending my broken heart alone — my ongoing self-analyzation and self-care practices are doing most of that work — but they are helping me regain a confidence in myself that I thought was gone forever and allowing me to discover a sexy that I never even knew I possessed.

Pero tú 'ta grande, 'ta madura/Pasan los años y te pones más dura

I take a sip of champagne between laughs as Bad Bunny sings through a speaker in my hotel room, where I celebrate my 28th birthday last July.

Baby, cómo te cura/Mientras me tortura

Cosculluela’s “Madura,” which features Benito, feels like it was recorded with me and this day in mind. Here I am, another year older and feeling badder than ever in my low-cut, skin-tight, thunder thighs-baring little black dress, and one year out of the most important romantic relationship, and friendship, of my life, maturing and healing in ways that were unimaginable 365 days prior.

I pick up. It’s all love, always and forever, but that doesn’t mean either of us want to rekindle this flame.

Es porque la noche es mía/La voy a disfrutar sin tu compañía

Life is the best it’s been in months, probably years. I’m not as stressed these days, so my skin is clear and my hair can easily land a spot in a shampoo commercial. I do what I want to do when I want to do it, whether that’s cozy solo nights in watching Netflix or catching a last-minute arena game with a homegirl. My money is mine, and I spend it traveling the globe and investing in my future. As Karol G sings in her chart-topper “Ahora Me Llama,” “Yo soy dueña de mi vida. A mi nadie me manda.”

After spending eight years with someone who I still consider the love of my life, many of them jovial and adoring yet others agonizing and lamentable, I’m at a place, post-anger and post-despair, where I’m learning what it’s like to be alone, particularly as an adult, an opportunity I never had before, and I’m surprisingly enjoying it. But I’m aware that this solitude won’t last forever. My “Amorfoda” “f**k love” stage is behind me. My heart isn’t cold. Instead, I’m excited to love and care again. After all, that’s when my cancer spirit feels its best. But before that day comes, I’m savoring and being intentional about these moments — my time with and for me.

Today, at the start of a new year and almost two years single, I’m feeling a bit like the trapero who has been with me throughout my heartbreak, Bad Bunny, in his newly-released, debut album X100PRE: “Ni Bien Ni Mal.”